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By: ’Tana Aiyejina
Embattled Lagos FA boss Fouad Oki, who was impeached by the board members of the state football body on Saturday, has described the process to unseat him as a charade.
The board members impeached Oki and voted Gafar Liameed as the new chairman of the state FA at its General Assembly held on Saturday, accusing Oki of illegal withdrawal of over N40m from the FA accounts, taking football matters in Lagos State to the Lagos High Court and single handedly and unilaterally changing the existing statutes of the Lagos FA to the detriment of the game in the state.
Oki had filed an order of interim injunction at the Lagos High Court on March 21 restraining the board members from holding its Extraordinary General Assembly on March 23, which the court granted.
The court order, which was seen by our correspondent, read in part, “An order of interim injunction is hereby granted restraining the defendants ( R.A. TAIWO and 12 others) from convening and holding the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Lagos State Football Association (LSFA) scheduled for the 23rd of March 2024 and from taking further actions whatsoever in connection with the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Association pending the hearing and determination of the application on notice in court.”
The court fixed the next hearing for April 8. However, the FA members went ahead with the Extraordinary General Assembly despite the court ruling and Oki insisted he was not impeached since there was a restraining order from the court.
“There can be no impeachment,” Oki told The PUNCH.
“If there’s a matter in court and the court says it wants the two parties to maintain status quo, are you expected to do anything?”
He added, “They said nobody can stop them from the charade on Saturday. I’m not bothered, the court has asked us to come April 8. When they get there, they will tell the court why they should not be cited in contempt when their lawyer was there and heard it.”
Oki, who said Gafar wrote petitions to 16 law enforcement agencies, including the police, DSS, EFCC and ICPC, told The PUNCH that he went to court to stop the congress from holding because the agencies were yet to conclude their investigations on the allegations levelled against him by Gafar.
“I’m not afraid of Congress. I wrote a letter to the Congress that they should let sense prevail. You want to hold a Congress on the same issues that have been taken to law enforcement agencies, why don’t we allow the law enforcement agencies conclude their investigations? But they replied that ‘no, March 23 is sacrosanct, with or without you, we are going ahead.’ I said if it’s gotten to that, I’ll approach the Lagos High Court to restrain them; that I won’t be going to the law enforcement agents and running to Congress.”
On the Congress accusing him of taking the state football matter to the ordinary court of law, which world body FIFA frowns on, the former Vice Chairman of the Lagos State chapter of the ruling All Progressives Congress added, “Our statutes don’t encourage our matters to go outside the family, so if you took the matter to law enforcement agencies, you now think the other man cannot go to court? “But does FIFA say that internal matters can be taken to the police? Did you exhaust the internal mechanism before going to the (police) station? In 2021 some people went to court against NFF, there was an injunction against the NFF election holding. They lost in court and went for an appeal. In January, the Appeal Court ruled in favour of those who went to court. I can cite other examples in Nigeria. The court is the last hope of the common man; the right to fair hearing is fundamental.”
Meanwhile, Harrison Jalla, task force chairman of the Professional Footballers Association of Nigeria, accused the Nigeria Football Federation of “meddling” in the affairs of state FAs.
Jalla, in a statement, said the NFF supported members of the Lagos FA to defy the court order restraining the Extraordinary General Assembly from holding.
Jalla stated, “Members of the Lagos State Football Association, with the backing of the Nigeria Football federation, brazenly flouted a valid court order issued by Hon Justice R.O. Olukolu of the Lagos State High Court dated 21st day of March, 2024.
“But why is the NFF always meddling in the internal affairs of state football associations? “There are ongoing litigations in Taraba and Bayelsa states Football Association and several states FAs are now being run by imposed normalisation committees.
“The disobedience of this court order has already plunged the Lagos State Football Association into full blown crisis.”